Laundry flatwork feeder



Oct. 7, 1969 B. WITHORN LAUNDRY FLATWORK FEEDER '2 Sheets-Sheet l Filed Jan. 26, 1967 IN VEN TOR.

BENJAMIN WITHORN Oct. 7, 1969 Filed Jan. 26, 1967 B- WITHQRN LAUNDRY FLATWORK FEEDER 2 Sheets-Sheet 72 INVENTOR. BENJAMIN WITHORN United States Patent Ofitice 3,470,636 Patented Oct. 7, 1969 3,470,636 LAUNDRY FLATWORK FEEDER Benjamin Withorn, 5055 Seminary Road, Alexandria, Va. 22311 Continuation-impart of application Ser. No. 476,503,

Aug. 2, 1965. This application Jan. 26, 1967, Ser.

Int. Cl. D06f 67/04 U.S. Cl. 38-143 2 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE The patent specification and drawings disclose a fabric feeder which is adapted to be used in conjunction with a Hat ironer. The fabric feeder includes a pair of outwardly diverging and counter-rotating endless belts which are mounted in slots provided in a housing. These endless belts are adapted to rotate in opposite directions, from the center of the housing to the sides of the housing and to thereby stretch the flatwork which is positioned thereon to smooth out any wrinkles which are present in the fabric. In addition, a pair of conically shaped rollers are mounted over a plurality of longitudinally and coextensively extending continuous belts which feed the material to the ironer. The said rollers are tilted or canted with respect to the line of travel of flatwork positioned on a plurality of the aforesaid longitudinally coextensive belts which extend from a position closely adjacent to the housing for the outwardly diverging counter-rotating belts and the ironer. The conical rollers function to further remove any wrinkles in the fabric prior to its being fed to the ironing structure.

Background of the invention The present invention is designed primarily to eliminate as much as possible the manual labor which is needed in presenting flatwork to an ironing machine. In laundry establishments it is customary to have a number of people handling the flatwear to be ironed, the main purpose thereof being to eliminate the wrinkles which are present in the flatwork when it is received from the washingand drying machines. As can be appreciated, unless these wrinkles are removed from the fabric, when the same passes through the ironing segment of the laundry equipment, the wrinkles will be pressed into the fabric which is undesirable.

The present invention has been designed to produce a means whereby the wrinkles in the flatwork are removed by mechanical means prior to feeding the same to an ironing structure. A pair of outwardly diverging counter-rotating endless belts cause an initial spreading of the flatwork so as to remove the wrinkles from thereon and then, a pair of conical rollers which are adapted to engage with the fabric are employed for a still further stretching operation of the fabric prior to its being fed to the ironing portion of the machine.

Summary of the invention The present invention relates generally to laundry apparatus and more specifically to a fabric feeder adaptable for use in conjunction with a fiat ironer.

This application is a continuation-in-part of earlier application, now abandoned, Ser. No. 476,503, filed Aug. 2, 1965 and entitled Laundry Flatwork Feeder.

Under present conditions, a sheet, before it is fed to an ironing machine, must be manually handled by several operators to insure the feeding of the sheet to the ironing machine with all possible facility and the least possible formation of wrinkles in the sheet. To accomplish this purpose, there is provided a housing supporting driving means for a pair of diverging belts rotating in opposite directions so that when the flatwork is placed thereon and properly tensioned it is thereafter received by a pair of rollers, one on each side of the housing and supported thereby, which rollers thereafter feed the flatwork in taut condition to a system of parallel belts which feed the work directly to the conventional ironing machine which receives it in a non-wrinkled condition. The flatwork alluded to may consist of bedsheets, tablecloths or the like.

One object of the invention is to reduce the number of operators required to handle the flatwork and feed it to the device of this invention.

Another object of the invention is the provision of oppositely rotating endless belts or carrier mounted in and carried by a housing which can be positioned forwardly of a smoothing arrangement of horizontal belts whence the work is fed to the ironing machine.

A further object of the invention is to provide a cooperating attachment with a conventional ironing machine which is self-contained, which possesses its own source of power and can operate independently of the ironing machine.

The main object of the invention, of course, is to provide a self-contained unit which can be employed and co operate with a conventional ironing machine whereby once a sheet or other flatwork has been initially placed on the structure of the instant invention, the wrinkles in the fabric are forcibly and automatically taken out prior to the sheet or flatwork being fed to the conventional ironing machine.

The exact nature of this invention, as well as other objects and advantages thereof, will be readily apparent and readily understood by referring to the following description considered with the accompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals designate like parts.

Brief description of the drawings FIGURE 1 is a fragmentary plan view of the device of the present invention, and

FIGURE 2 is a partial median vertical section through the device shown in FIGURE 1, taken on line 22 thereof, looking in the direction of the arrows.

Description of the preferred embodiments In the drawings, number 1 designates a housing made of any suitable material capable of containing the working parts of the instant invention. This housing can be of any size, it being sufiicient that the width thereof will enable the placement therein of the working elements of the invention.

Housing 1 can be supported on a floor or other supporting surface such as vertical adjustable leg supports as in U.S. Patent No. 3,153,291, for example, which are secured in any manner to the housing 1 so that the housing may be properly positioned with respect to the ironing machine.

Numerals 2 and 3 designate endless belts which are trained for rotation on pulleys 4, 5, 6 and 7, respectively,

3 which are mounted on shafts, one of which is shown on one side of the structure at of FIGURE 2, suitably secured within the housing 1. The means for driving these pulleys are substantially similar to those shown for the canted belts illustrated in earlier Patent 3,198,516. The belts used with the instant invention are provided with a roughened surface which will increase the efficiency of the smoothing operation of the belts as the sheet or other flatwork is placed thereon prior to being fed to a conventional ironing or smoothing machine.

Mounted on the underside of the housing machine is a source of power such as an electric motor 13 which can be secured to the undersurface of housing 1 by means of a bracket 14 mounted on housing 1 in any suitable manner. A shaft 15 extends from electric motor 13 and, mounted on this shaft are a pair of pulleys 16 and 17. Trained on pulley 16 is a V-type driving belt which has been twisted and following twisting thereof it engages a pulley 18 which is keyed or otherwise secured to the shaft on which pulley 5 is mounted. Pulley 17 has mounted for rotation therewith a second driving element 22 in the form of a V-type belt which is trained over a pulley 23 which is mounted for rotation with rotating shaft 10 secured to the underside of housing 1 by means of a bracket 21.

The above driving arrangement is such that pulley 18 drives pulley 5 and pulley 23 drives pulley 6, the necessary shafting being provided in known ways and secured beneath housing 1.

As is evident from the drawings, the electric motor aforesaid, or other source of power, is located on the undersurface of housing 1 in such manner that upon actuation of the power source and rotation of shaft 15, belts 20 and 22 will drive pulleys 18 and 23. It is obvious to anyone skilled in the art that the source of power may be located in any other place so long as it effects rotation of the pulleys as aforesaid.

As can be plainly seen in FIGURE 1 of the drawings, endless counter-rotating belts 2 and 3 are so positioned in diverging slots 26 and 27 formed in the housing 1 that the upper surfaces of the belts 2 and 3 extend upwardly above the plane of housing 1. This is clearly indicated in FIGURE 2 of the drawings where the belt with its roughened surface 12 extends beyond housing 1 for a purpose to be hereinafter more fully described.

As stated previously, housing 1 can be of any width and while I have described the invention as being particularly adapted to smoothing out wrinkles in sheets or other large flatwork, it is obvious that the same arrangement as herein presented can be constructed of any size so as to accommodate flatwork of lesser width than a conventional sheet.

Thus, I have described above laundry flatwork feeder which can be employed in association with any existing ironing or smoothing machine without modifying the same to adapt the present invention thereto. Housing 1 contians all of the working parts of the instant invention and, as stated previously, it is supported by any conventional leg standards capable of adjustment vertically so that the flatwork feeder can be set up with a conventional ironing machine and capable of operation therewith, regardless of the height of the ironing machine.

The drawings disclose the invention in proper position with a conventional ironing machine. Shown therein is a plurality of endless belts 28 which extend across the width and are coextensive with the conventional ironing machine. Belts 28 feed flatwork to the smoothing rollers of the ironing machine with which the feeder is associated, one such roller being shown at 31. In order to more accurately guide the flatwork to the belts 28, a pair of tilted rollers 50 and 51 are located above and at each terminal end of the belts 28. Rollers 50 and 51 are carried by brackets 52 and 53 secured in any desired manner to housing 1. Endless belts 28 are trained over pulleys 29 4 and 30 mounted on shafts 29' and 30 carried by the housing as shown in FIGURE 2. Springs 54 and 55 are in any manner secured to the brackets 52 and 53 and to the housing 1 so as to apply a downward pressure of the tilted rollers 50 and 51 forcing their conical periphery in contact with the belts 28.

While only one smoothing roller 31 is indicated in the drawings, it is to be understood that the ironer may comprise a plurality of such rollers which may be mounted in their respective concave pressing surfaces 32.

As previously stated, the instant invention can be practiced with any type of smoothing or ironing machine and not necessarily with' a roller type ironing machine such as shown in the drawings. I

In operation, once the housing 1 and its associated parts have been properly positioned in advance of the feed belts which feed the flatwork to the ironing machine, two operators, one at each side of the housing 1 when wide flatwork is to be ironed, stretch the leading edge of the flatwork and place the same on the oppositely canted rotating belts where, by reason of the fact that the belts rotate in opposite directions as indicated in FIGURE 1 of the drawings, the sheet is stretched by reason of its functional contact with the roughened surfaces of the belts and pulls out any wrinkles which are present in the sheet. As the sheet emerges from contacts with the canted belts 2 and 3 on its way to the smooth or ironer, its edges are guided under the conical rollers 50 and 51 which maintain the tauntness of the sheet and insures its proper guidance over the belts 28 and its eventual engagement by the rollers 31 of the smoother or ironing machine.

Thus, it will be seen that I have provided a simplified means of smoothing out flatwork prior to its contact with the ironing machine and also have accomplished this result with the least possible manual labor, thereby reducing the cost involved in operating an ironing machine. Normally, four operators would be required, two on each side, to feed the work directly to the ironing machine. With the structure of the instant invention, smoothing of the wrinkles is accomplished automatically once the work has been initially spread out and placed on the oppositely rotating belts of the instant invention.

Therefore, it will be apparent that many modifications and variations may be resorted to without departing from the spirit of the invention and it is therefore intended that all matter contained in the foregoing description and shown in the drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative only and not in a limiting sense.

What is claimed is:

1. The combination with an endless feed belt system adapted to feed flatwork to an ironing machine compris ing a plurality of endless belts coextensive with said ironing machine to which the said flatwork is fed and to be ironed thereby, a feeding unit adjacent said system com prising a housing having a pair of oppositely disposed slots in said housing, a pair of outwardly diverging counter-rotating endless belts having a roughened outer surface, each endless belts protruding outwardly through the aforesaid slots to a level above that of the housing, a pair of pulleys driving respectively each of said endless belts, means for mounting said pulleys on an inner wall of the housing, power means mounted on the aforesaid inner wall of the housing, driving means between said power means and said pulleys to effect movement of the belts driven thereby in opposite directions, a pair of spaced conical rollers, said conical rollers each secured to each end of said housing with spring means interposed between said rollers and said housing, said rollers being tilted with respect to the advancing line of travel of flatwork and adapted to engage with the edge portion only of said flatwork, said spring means urging said rollers against said feed belt system whereby flatwork placed on said counter-rotating endless belts will be fed to the ironing machine over said coextensive endless belts and under the said tilted roller to thereby remove wrinkles from said fiatwork.

2. The combination set forth in claim 1 including means for raising the housing to the level of the feed belt systern.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 221,576 11/1879 Kerr 2667 639,492 12/1899 Ashworth 26--63 X 739,781 9/1903 Green 38--143 X Lewis 2667 X Hogan 2665 Couch 2654 X Koppehele et a1. 2654 X Buss 38--143 Withorn et a1. 271-45 Grantham 38-143 Miller et al. 38-443 10 MERVIN STEIN, Primary Examiner G. V. LARKIN, Assistant Examiner 

